sufficiant et uxori.--_Fam_., xx., 4 (vol. iii., p. 21).
56: Two or three examples of such descriptions will be found below,
Part. IV.
57: See his enthusiastic letter to Giacomo Colonna, who had invited him
to undertake the journey.--_Fam_., ii., 9.
58: _Convito_, iv., 5.
59: _Convito_, iv., 5.
60: See below, Part V.
61: All authorities agree as to the fearful degradation of Rome during
the absence of the popes.
62: _Fam_., ii., 14.
63: Petrarch confesses that he owed the crown to Robert. _Ecl_., x.,
370 _sqq_.
64: _Fam_., iv., 3 (the opening lines).
65: _Fam_., iv., 2 (vol. i., p. 206).
66: Recolo ... in hoc ipso capitolio romano ubi nunc insistimus
tot tantosque vates ad culmen preclari magisterii provectos
emeritam lauream reportasse ... post statium pampineum illustrem
poetam qui domitiani temporibus floruit nullum legimus tali honore
decoratum.--Hortis, _Scritti Inediti_, p. 316.
67: _Rerum Mem_., end of book i.; an interesting estimate of Robert.
68: _Ep. Poet. Lat_., ii., 1.
69: _Cf._ Hortis, _op. cit_., chap, i., "La Laurea del Petrarca."
70: _Ibid_., 311 _sqq_.
71: _Georgics_, iii., 291, 292, as translated by Rhoades.
72: _Op. cit_., p. 174. _Cf._ Gregorovius, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_.,
vi., pp. 207 _sqq_.
73: _Cf._ Fracassetti, _Let. delle Cos. Fam._, i., 525 _sqq_.
74: The canzone beginning, Quel c' ha nostra natura in se più degno.
75: See Fracassetti, _op. cit_., i., 527.
76: In the dedicatory preface to that work the reader will find an
interesting review of Azzo's career.
77: _Var_., 16 (vol. iii., p. 337), also _Var_., 4. For the whole
matter see Fracassetti, _Let. delle Cos. Fam_., i., pp. 525 _sqq._
78: _Ep. Poet. Lat._, ii., 5.
79: _Fam_., v., 3, 4, and 5. In the last of these there is a fine
description of a terrible storm.
80: _Fam_., xxiv., 3; also Voigt, _op. cit._, p. 42. It has been
satisfactorily proved that Petrarch was unaware of the existence of the
important collection _Ad Familiares. Cf_. de Nolhac, _op. cit_., 94 and
211 _sqq_.
81: See below, Part V.
82: _Fam_., xii., 7 (vol. ii., p. 186).
83: Ex ea urbe nati sumus, an inexact expression, since neither was
born in Florence, but a confession that they both felt themselves to be
Florentine citizens.
84: _Sen_., ii., 1 (_Opera_, p. 751). Note Dante's bitterly sarcastic
characterisation of the Florentine readiness to express an opinion, in
the _Purgatorio_, vi., especially lines 127 _sqq_.:
Molti han giustizia in cuor; ma tardi scocca,
Per non venir senza consiglio all' arco;
Ma 'l popol tuo l' ha in sommo della bocca.
85: _Fam_., xi., 16 and 17.
86: _Fam_., xiii., 5.
87: _Ep. Poet. Lat_., iii., 24.
88: _Fam_., xvi., 12 (vol. ii., p. 403). _Cf._ also _Fam_., xvii., 10.
89: _Cf_. close of _Fam_., xvi., 12. For Boccaccio's words of protest,
see Corazzini's edition of his letters, p. 47 _sqq_. Nelli did not join
in the criticisms of the other friends, but advised him to do as he
pleased. See his letter (x.), in the edition of Cochin.
90: See the amusing instances cited by Voigt, _op. cit_., i., 446 _sqq_.
91: _Cf_. Dietrich von Niehm, _De Scismate_, ed. Erler, p. 94.
92: _Sen_., viii., 3 (_Opera_, p. 836).
93: _Historia di Milano_ (ed. of 1565), p. 567.
94: _Fam_., xviii., 16.
95: See below, Part V.
96: For the humanistic tendencies at Prague, see Voigt, _op. cit_.,
ii., 261 _sqq_., and Friedjung, _Kaiser Karl IV. und sein Antheil am
geistigen Leben seiner Zeit_, Vienna, 1876.
97: _Fam_., xxiii., 2 (vol. iii., p. 184).
98: See above, p. 31 _sqq_. (He would gladly reside in the city...)
99: _Opera_, pp. 372 _sqq_.
Petrarch's Preface to his First Collection of Letters_
_To his Friend "Socrates"_[1]
What now, brother? We have tried almost everything, and nowhere have
we found peace. When may we hope for that, and where shall we seek it?
Time, as the saying is, has slipped between our fingers. Our early
hopes are buried with our friends. The year 1348 has left us solitary
and bereaved; and has taken from us what all the wealth of Ormus and of
Ind could never replace.[2]
Such final losses are irreparable, and the wounds inflicted by death
can never be healed. There is but one source of consolation; we shall
soon follow those who have gone before. How long we must wait we know
not. But this we do know, it cannot be for long; and the delay,
however short, will not be without its trials. Yet let us, here at the
outset at least, refrain from lamentation.
I do not know, brother, what anxieties are weighing upon you or what
your present preoccupations may be. As for me, I am making up my
bundles and, as those on the verge of departure are wont to do, I am
trying to decide what to take with me, what to distribute among my
friends, and what to throw into the fire. At any rate, I have nothing
to sell. I possess, or rather am burdened by, more than I supposed. I
found, for example, a vast store of scattered and neglected writings
of different kinds in the house. I have laboriously exhumed boxes,
buried in dust, and bundles of manuscript, half-destroyed by time. The
importunate mouse as well as the insatiable bookworm, have plotted
against me, and, a devotee of Pallas, I have been entangled in the
toils of Pallas's enemy, the spider. There is, however, no obstacle
which may not be overcome by persistent effort. Surrounded by the
confused masses of letters and manuscripts I began, following my first
impulse, to consign everything to the flames, with a view to escaping
from the inglorious task of assorting the papers. Then, as one thought
springs from another, it occurred to me that, like a traveller weary by
reason of the long road, I might well look back as from an eminence,
and step by step review the history of my younger days.
This counsel prevailed. It seemed to me, if not an exalted undertaking,
at least not a disagreeable one, to recall the shifting feelings and
sentiments of earlier times. But, taking up the disordered papers at
random, I was astonished to see how distorted and blurred the past
appeared to me, not of course that it, but rather that my mental
vision, had changed, so that I hardly recognised my former self. Still,
some things that I happened upon called up pleasant reminiscences of
long ago. Some of the productions moved with the free step of prose,
some were held in check by Homeric reins (I have rarely used those of
Isocrates),[3] others, destined to charm the ear of the people, also
obeyed their own appropriate laws. The last mentioned style of verse,
revived, it is said, not many generations ago, among the Sicilians,
spread in a short time throughout Italy, and even beyond. This kind
of poetry was held in great repute by the earliest writers among the
Greeks and Romans, and the common people of Rome and Athens are said to
have been accustomed to the rhythmical lyrics only.
This chaotic medley kept me busy for several days, and, although I felt
the potent charm and natural partiality which are associated with all
one's own productions, the love for my more important works finally got
the upper hand. These had suffered a long interruption and were still
uncompleted, although they were anxiously awaited by not a few. The
shortness of life was borne in upon me. I feared, I must confess, its
snares and pitfalls. What indeed is more transient than life, and what
more certain than death? It occurred to me to ask what foundation I had
laid, and what would remain to me for all my toil and vigils. It seemed
a rash, an insane thing, to have undertaken such long and enduring
labours in the course of so brief and uncertain an existence, and thus
to scatter my talents, which would scarcely suffice for the successful
accomplishment of a single undertaking. Moreover, as you well know,
another task awaits me more glorious than these in proportion as
actions merit more enduring praise than words.[4]
But why dwell longer upon this matter? It will perhaps seem incredible
to you, but it is none the less true, that I committed to Vulcan for
correction a thousand or more scattered poems of all kinds and letters
of friendly intercourse, not because I found nothing in them to my
liking, but because they involved more work than pleasure. I did this,
however, with a sigh, as I am not ashamed to confess. But with a mind
so occupied it was necessary to resort even to somewhat harsh measures
for relief, just as an overburdened ship must sometimes be lightened by
the sacrifice of valuable cargo.
After disposing of these I noticed, lying in a corner, a few papers
which had been preserved rather by accident than intention, or had,
at some former time, been copied by my assistants, and so in one way
or the other had escaped the perils of advancing age. I say a few--I
fear they will seem a great many to the reader, and far too numerous to
the copyist. I was more indulgent to these, and allowed them to live,
not so much on account of their worthiness as of my convenience, for
they did not involve any additional labour of my own. As I considered
them with regard to the natural inclinations of two of my friends, the
prose fell to you, while the verse I decided to dedicate to our friend
Barbato. I recollected that this used to be your preference, and that
I had promised to follow your wishes. My mood was such that I was
on the point of destroying everything which I came across, not even
sparing those writings just mentioned, when you both seemed to appear
to me, one on my right and one on my left, and, grasping my hands, you
admonished me in a friendly manner not to do violence at once to my
good faith and your anticipations. This was the chief reason why these
were spared, for otherwise, believe me, they would have gone up in
smoke like the rest.
You will read your portion of what remains, such as it is, not only
patiently, but even eagerly. I do not venture to repeat the boast of
Apuleius of Madaura, "Reader, you have but to listen to be charmed";
for on what grounds could I venture to promise pleasure to the reader?
But, you at least, will read the letters, my good Socrates, and, as
you are very fond of your friends, you may discover some charm in
them. Your partiality for the author will make his style pleasing
(indeed what beauty of style is likely to be perceived by an unfriendly
judge?); it is vain to adorn what already delights. If anything
gratifies you in these letters of mine, I freely concede that it is
not really mine but yours; that is to say, the credit is due not to
my ability but to your good-will. You will find no great eloquence or
vigour of expression in them. Indeed I do not possess these powers,
and if I did, in ever so high a degree, there would be no place for
them in this kind of composition. Even Cicero, who was renowned for
these abilities, does not manifest them in his letters, nor even in his
treatises, where, as he himself says, the language is characterised
by a certain evenness and moderation. In his orations, on the other
hand, he displayed extraordinary powers, pouring out a clear and rapid
stream of eloquence. This oratorical style Cicero used frequently for
his friends, and against his enemies and those of the republic.[5] Cato
resorted to it often on behalf of others, and for himself four and
forty times. In this mode of composition I am wholly inexperienced,
for I have been far away from the responsibilities of state. And while
my reputation may sometimes have been assailed by slight murmurs, or
secret whisperings, I have so far never suffered any attack in the
courts which I must needs avenge or parry. Hence, as it is not my
profession to use my weapons of speech for the defence of others, I
do not frequent the tribunals, nor have I ever learned to loan my
tongue. I have, indeed, a deep repugnance for such a life, for I am by
nature a lover of silence and solitude, an enemy of the courts, and a
contemner of wealth. It was fortunate for me that I was freed from the
necessity of resorting to a weapon which I might not have been able
to use if I had tried. I have therefore made no attempt to employ an
oratorical style, which, even if it had been at my disposal, would have
been uncalled for in this instance. But you will accept this homely
and familiar language in the same friendly spirit as you do the rest,
and take in good part a style well adapted to the sentiments we are
accustomed to express in ordinary conversation.
All my critics, however, are not like you, for they do not all think
the same, nor do they all love me as you do. But how can I hope to
please everybody, when I have always striven to gratify a few only?
There are three poisons which kill sound criticism, love, hate, and
envy. Beware lest through too much love you should make public what
might better be kept concealed. As you are guided by love, so others
may be influenced by other passions. Between the blindness of love and
that of jealousy there is indeed a great difference in origin, but
not always in effect. Hate, to which I have assigned a middle place,
I neither merit nor fear. Still it can easily be so arranged that
you may keep and read my trifling productions for your own exclusive
pleasure, thinking of nothing except the incidents in our lives and
those of our friends which they recall. Should you do this, it would
be most gratifying to me. In this way your request will have been
satisfied and my reputation will be safe. Beyond this I do not deceive
myself with the vain hope of favour. For how can we imagine even a
friend, if he be not an _alter ego_, reading without weariness such
a mass of miscellaneous and conflicting recollections? There is no
unity in the themes or composition of the letters, and with the various
matters treated went varying moods, which were rarely happy and usually
despondent.
Epicurus, a philosopher held in disrepute among the vulgar but esteemed
by those better able to judge, confined his correspondence to two or
three persons--Idomeneus, Polyænus, and Metrodorus. Cicero wrote to
hardly more, to Brutus, Atticus, and the other two Ciceros, his brother
and son. Seneca wrote to few except his friend Lucilius. It obviously
renders felicitous letter-writing a simple matter if we know the
character of our correspondent and get used to his particular mind, so
that we can judge what he will be glad to hear and what we may properly
communicate. But my lot has been a very different one, for heretofore
almost my whole life has been passed in journeying from place to place.
I might compare my wanderings with those of Ulysses; and certainly
were we only on the same plane in reputation and in the fame of our
adventures, I might claim that he had not wandered farther or been cast
upon more distant shores than I. He was already well advanced in years
when he left his native land, and, since nothing is long in our lives,
the experiences of his old age were necessarily brief indeed: I, on the
other hand, was conceived and born in exile, costing my mother such
grievous pangs, and in such critical circumstances, that not only the
midwives but the physicians long believed her to be dead. Thus I began
to encounter dangers before I was born, and attained the threshold of
life under the auspices of death. The event is commemorated by the
no means insignificant city of Arezzo,[6] whither my father, driven
from his country, had taken refuge, together with many another worthy
man. Thence I was taken in my seventh month and carried about all over
Tuscany by a certain sturdy youth, who wrapped me up in a cloth, just
as Metabus did Camilla, and bore me suspended from a knotty staff, so
as not to injure my tender body by any rough contact. But once, in
crossing the Arno (I delight to recall with you the beginnings of my
tribulations), his horse stumbled and he fell into the water, and while
striving to save the burden entrusted to him he nearly sacrificed his
own life in the raging flood.
Our wanderings through Tuscany finally ended at Pisa. From here,
however, I was dragged away again, in my seventh year,[7] and in our
journey to France by sea we were wrecked by winter storms, not far from
Marseilles, and I was on the verge of being summoned away anew from
the vestibule of life.--But I am straying from my subject. From then
until now I have had little or no opportunity to stop and take breath.
How many and how various the dangers and apprehensions I have suffered
in my migrations no one, after myself, better knows than you. Hence I
have felt free to recall these events, that you may keep in mind that
I was born among perils and among perils have grown old,--if old I am,
and there are not worse trials ahead. Although similar vicissitudes
may be common to everyone entering this life, since existence is a
warfare--nay more, a battle,--each nevertheless has his peculiar
experiences, and the fighting differs greatly in kind. Each has his
own burdens to bear, but it still makes a great difference what these
burdens are.
Well then, to return to the matter in hand,--since amid the tempests
of life I have never for long cast anchor in any one port, I have
naturally made innumerable acquaintances. How many true friends I
know not, for friends are not only exceedingly few, but difficult
to distinguish. It has fallen to my lot, in consequence, to write
to a great many who differed so widely from one another in mind and
condition that on re-reading my letters it sometimes seemed to me as if
I had said in one precisely the opposite from what I had in another.
Yet anyone who has been in a similar position will readily admit that
I was almost forced into such contradictions. The first care indeed
in writing is to consider to whom the letter is to be sent; then we
may judge what to say and how to say it. We address a strong man in
one way and a weak one in another. The inexperienced youth and the
old man who has fulfilled the duties of life, he who is puffed up
with prosperity and he who is stricken with adversity, the scholar
distinguished in literature and the man incapable of grasping anything
beyond commonplace,--each must be treated according to his character
or position. There are infinite varieties among men; minds are no
more alike than faces. And as the same stomach does not always relish
the same kind of food, the same mind is not always to be fed upon the
same kind of writing. So the task becomes a double one, for not only
have we to consider the person to whom we propose to write, but how
those things we are planning to say are likely to affect him when he
reads them. Owing to these difficulties I have often been forced into
apparent contradictions. And in order that unfavourable critics may not
turn this against me, I have relied in a measure upon the kind aid of
the flames for safety, and for the rest, upon your keeping the letters
secret and suppressing my name.
But friends are lynx-eyed, and nothing is likely to escape them; so
that if you cannot keep the letters from the few who still remain,
be sure to urge them to destroy immediately any of my communications
that they may possess, lest they be disturbed by any changes which I
have made in the words or matter. These changes are due to the fact
that, since it never occurred to me that you would ask or that I would
consent to have the letters brought together in a single collection,
I was accustomed, in order to avoid labour, to repeat now and then
something I had said in a previous letter, using my own as my own, as
Terence says. Now that letters sent off years ago to the most distant
regions are brought together at once in a single place, it is easy to
perceive deformities in the whole body which were not apparent in
the separate parts. Phrases which pleased when they occurred but once
in a letter, begin to annoy one when frequently repeated in the same
collection; accordingly they must be retained in one and expunged from
the others. Many things, too, which related to every-day cares and
which deserved mention when I wrote, would now weary even the most
eager reader, and were therefore omitted. I recollect that Seneca
laughed at Cicero for including trivial matters in his letters, and yet
I am much more prone in my epistles to follow Cicero's example than
Seneca's. Seneca, indeed, gathered into his letters pretty much all the
moral reflections which he had published in his various books: Cicero,
on the other hand, treats philosophical subjects in his books, but
fills his letters with miscellaneous news and the gossip of the day.
Let Seneca think as he likes about this; as for me, I must confess that
I find Cicero's letters very agreeable reading. They relax the tension
produced by weighty matters, which if long continued strains the mind,
though if occasionally interrupted it becomes a source of pleasure.
I cannot sufficiently wonder at the boldness of Sidonius, although I
may be a bit rash myself in denouncing this boldness when I do not
very well understand his sarcasms, either because of my slow wit or
his obscure style, or, as is not impossible, by reason of some error
in the text. One thing, however, is clear; Cicero is ridiculed, and by
a Sidonius![8] What liberty!--effrontery I would say, did I not fear
to exasperate those whom I have already offended by calling him bold.
Here is one of the Latin people who finds it in his heart to attack
Cicero. Nor does he speak of some single weakness, for if that were all
I should have to ask pardon for both Seneca and myself; human frailty,
indeed, can hardly escape criticism. But this Sidonius has dared to
make sport of Cicero's eloquence,--his whole style and his method in
general. This Arvernian[9] orator does not simply imagine himself,
as he says, a brother of the Latin orator, which would be audacious
enough, but he assumes the rôle of a rival, and, what is worse, of a
scoffer. He would deprive him of the renown which all but a few of his
contemporaries and fellow-citizens unanimously concede to him: even
those few were doubtless warped in their judgment and goaded on by
envy, the constant attendant upon contemporary fame. But neither time
nor place afford any extenuation in the case of Sidonius. Consequently
I wonder more and more what manner of person this was who thus attacked
the undoubted prince of orators, although he was himself a disciple of
oratory, and belonged to another age, and was born in another land.
Upon turning the whole matter over in my mind, I find it impossible to
accept in the case of so learned a man the excuse of ignorance, and to
ascribe his perverted opinions to a weakness of the head rather than
of the heart. I may be mistaken in this matter, as in many others, but
if I am I rejoice that I am mistaken in company with many, and those
by far the most distinguished, judges in believing that Cicero leaves
all fault-finders far behind, and that to him belongs the palm for
prose eloquence. From this point of view the moral and intellectual
perversity of those who deny him pre-eminence becomes as clear as day.
Sidonius brings forward, it is true, a certain Julius Titianus and
certain Frontoniani,[10] of whom I have never heard, as the authorities
for his sarcasms. To these, and to all those holding such views, I
make one and the same reply, namely, that Seneca was right when he
said, "Whatever strength or advantage Roman eloquence may have to
oppose to the arrogance of Greece was developed by Cicero." Moreover,
Quintilian, among the many glorious things which he says of Cicero,
well observes: "He was sent by the special gift of providence, with
such extraordinary powers that in him eloquence might manifest all
her resources." And after many proofs of this, he continues: "It
was therefore but right that his contemporaries should declare with
one accord that he reigned supreme in the courts. With succeeding
generations it has come to pass that Cicero is no longer regarded as
the name of a man, but of eloquence itself. To him, therefore, let
us look, placing him before us as our model. When a student comes to
admire Cicero greatly, he may know that he is making progress."[11]
I hold moreover that, conversely, it is quite true that one to whom
Cicero's style is displeasing either knows nothing of the highest
eloquence or hates it.